13 March 2013, Turin, Italy - How to scale-up employment creation and social inclusion in a green economy? This was the central question of the Inter-Agency Workshop on Employment and Social Inclusion in a Green Economy held on 4-5 March 2013 in Turin, Italy. More than 50 government representatives, researchers, development experts, staff of international organizations, and practitioners came together to review and compare current approaches, tools, and practices to assess and promote jobs and social inclusion in a green economy.

Experiences from India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Kenya, Philippines, and South Africa illustrated the different assessment methodologies currently applied and allowed for a discussion on their strengths, weaknesses, shortcomings, and relevance. Moreover, the workshop offered an opportunity to discuss how to drive policy formulation and implementation for a green economy, with a focus on sectoral and value chain approaches and skills development.

Indeed, one of the key challenges lying ahead is how to address new and changing skills needs for a green economy transition. Opportunities discussed for strengthening education and training for green jobs included, inter alia, the importance of anticipating skills needs as opposed to ad-hoc responses; ensuring policy coherence between environmental, skills and sectoralpolicies; facilitating dialogue between employers, workers unions, government, and learning institutions to make sure green innovations are reflected in curricula; and develop capacities of national education and training institutions including teachers training.

Organized by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and UNITAR under the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), and the Green Growth Working Group of the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED), the workshop provided a forum to expand knowledge, create synergies, and facilitate the creation of an international network of institutions committed to promote employment and social inclusion in the green economy. The International Training Centre (ITC) of the ILO hosted this two-day event.